Butterfly Mania – A wonderfully complex butterfly mod

It’s almost spring time, fellow Minecrafters, and it’s time for your world to reflect it. Luckily, modder TyronX has you covered with his wonderful Butterfly Mania mod. The mod adds 110 butterfly types, each with specific spawning conditions. They will fly around, feed on flowers and other flora, avoid rain and even bundle up near objects of interest. You can collect them and keep track of species in an encyclopedia. This mod, while it may sound simple, is truly rich and filled with content, so read on to explore it further…

So, butterflies. The mod adds tons of them. 110 to be more precise, each with a different set of colors gracing their wings, and each with different features like speed, preferred feeding plant, escape rate etc. Some butterflies spawn during the day, some during night, some don’t mind either. They also have specific biome spawn rules loosely based on real-life. For example, there will be lots of butterflies in plains and forests, a decent amount in swamps and hills, less in deserts and almost none in tundras and oceans. Each biome also has specific butterfly types, so there’s a great deal of diversity between biomes, though there are some common species that spawn everywhere.

The features that each butterfly has are visual and behavioral. The visual part of course being the size and color palette of the butterfly, while the behavioral part is a bit more complicated. There’s speed, which only has 2 states – normal and fast (for night types and such that fly fast in real life too). Then there’s the escape rate, which affects how scared of the player a butterfly will be. It goes from low over medium to high, and it affects the chance it will run away, the range at which the escape mechanism is triggered by the player, the speed increase it gets when fleeing and even how far away it will escape.

When they’re not running away, butterflies do normal butterfly stuff. You can see them sitting on blocks randomly once they’re tired of flying. They will fly around and feed on flowers and other plants, depending on which type of butterfly it is. The creator states that there is a complex AI behind each butterfly that tracks how hungry they are, which affects how likely they are to seek out a new block to feed. You can even interrupt them when feeding, which will make them search for a new source of food sooner than usual because they didn’t eat until they were full. Butterflies will even actively avoid direct rainfall and seek cover during storms.

The main game-mechanic of this mod is collecting the butterflies. In order to do this you will need a catching net, some jars (the cork ca be made out of better materials to increase durability), and an encyclopedia to track your progress. To catch a butterfly, you just right click on it with a net (you don’t even need to be precise, it will work even if you miss by a little), and it will be added into an empty jar. You will need to visit various biomes (and even caves or the Nether) to find and document every butterfly. Data about each butterfly will be entered in your encyclopedia where you can also conveniently track which butterflies you already have and where to look for more. The whole thing is very Pokemon-like, and it’s a fun thing to do, especially if you’ve already done everything you’ve ever wanted to do with your world.

This mod is already a very polished pack full of great content and a simple, yet challenging and rewarding game mechanic. Future plans for the mod sound very promising and include new species, moths, HD textures and even new butterfly behaviors like migrating species and species with a “homebase”. The mod only requires Forge and doesn’t overwrite anything, so you should try it if you’re at all interested in the concept, or just want to add a springtime feel into your world.